Stunned to find this morning 1.31.11/9am EST that there is no longer any running coverage of what is going on in Egypt. Have American complained they're missing the usual idiocy or soaps, game shows, vapid yakking talk show? Is that possible? Since the average reading level in the US is at 6th grade, maybe I shouldn't be so shocked. It's disgusting.
So the race is on to flee Egypt by those with American citizenship. I saw alot of women in abaya sitting among those waiting for a flight out. No sense in staying and watching the country go up in smoke. On Sunday the American Embassy in Cairo closed. Landlines, computers etc not working and 53,000 known Americans registered with the embassy...doubtful everyone could make contact or receive information, or maybe there are people with enough badaan to stay and help.
Mubarak 'fired' his govt and is now rehiring many of the same, with only one Karim Mohamed Karim (?) refusing to rejoin the 'new' govt. Nic Robertson tweeted that plans for a Million Man march is being put together for Alex on Tuesday, and Al Arabiya reported alot of people in Alex were shot overnight. AlJazeera journalists and some Americans were arrested, US asked that their reporters be released, Jazeera had its equipment or reporters returned, not sure which-so maybe the game now is telling governments they too cannot see what Egy is going to do to crackdown and crush dissent.
There is still a huge difference between a tweet n cell phone clip and seeing live video with reporters explaining what's going on in the streets. The supposition is mubarak is tellig them not to cover the uproar because it only incites further problems as he tried to do only what he was asked to do by Obama, move ahead with reforms asap and allow for free elections.
When Saddam Hussein's son in law fled the country after some arguements about the nature of life under Hussein, Hussein had his daughter call her husband and say, all is forgiven, come home to the family so we can all be together. The daughter thought her loving father actually was forgiving her husband; no sooner did his plane land when he was brought to the palace and executed.
Can we say that Mubarak's actions with the US in terms of making 'peace' with Israel out weighs all the other sins he is guilty of? His so called peace has allowed tunnels to be built and used all along the Egypt Israel border where even cars can be driven through the tunnels are so well constructed. He's done nothing to improve the lives of Egyptians, no matter what BS talking heads list off. The US is even more guilty for blindly buying him off every year to keep him in line as he pays off and strengthens his Army/Police to keep the poor people of Egypt crushed and seemingly apathetic.
All the despots who met for years, the Arab League of Nations, who mumbled together for a few days, cursing Israel as the bane of their existence and saying their countrymen are too apathetic to raise themselves up for change. What's even more astonishing, is that we've watched for decades now 2 generations of young men throw stone, get shot, blow themselves up and murder other people and yet all of those deaths could not rally the ME as the death of a Tunisian fruit seller.
In a world where you willingly bear and sacrifice your children, thinking its for the sake of the greater good, or even for their G-ds honor, those deaths are justified, they were done willingly. But a man so poor that he could not get a license to sell fruit to make a meager living had his stall confiscated-there was simply nothing left.
Islam is unlike Judaism in that-Islam is fatalistic, a person's lot is what it is, to challenge or question the status of your life be it poverty, domestic abuse, illness etc, is to blaspheme because G-d is Great, so pray 5x a day accepting your situation, shrug and have a sheesha. Those who collect garbage will see their children do the same.
Judaism is a 24/7 exploration relationship, that if lived according to Law brings a Jew to understanding that wealth is often given to the undeserving for reasons G-d knows, its not to be envied, work by your own hand for bread is a healthier meal. Judaism offers hope; a person can pray Tehillim and daily prayers for repentence, health, healing, children, charity is not the exception, its the rule and not at one's convenience. I'll also write there are uncanny similarities in textual stories, manner of prayer, so that to say one is better than the other is not correctly defining the issue-it is enough that G-d told Jews, remain separate, it is for your own good.
The concept of fatalism in Arab culture as been written and studied by minds greater than mine will ever be, but this idea has been exploited by both Arab and non Arabs to control millions of people for centuries. And the children of these peoples have been exposed to a larger world where desire, individuality, expression, dissent, selfishness are possibilities if they can make them happen...it is not necessarily hopeless. Seeing a single young man be denied his destiny to earn a living at the corner of Hopeless & Despair was no longer acceptable. Perhaps one day Americans and maybe Israelis too will understand that it is untenable for humanity that one group of individuals must suffer intensely so that a few others may profit.
Chassidisha maydel leaves klal,does tschuvah returns after quarter century in goyische velt. Ous yid ken men vern-ous khusid ken men nisht vern
Monday, January 31, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Day 5
A woman summarizing the hearts of Egyptian women and surely the stunted spirits of Egypt's men: "32 years are difficult for me, he (Mubarak) doesn't belong here, he has to go. I thought there were no men in Egypt, today I found there are Egyptian men."
While filming the exuberance and vehemence of protesters yelling and screaming into the camera "We dont want you! go!, get out!, go!, we hate you..." Nic Robertson noted that after 30 years of repressed frustrations Egyptians spoke with "unmodulated emotion"...euphemistic phrasing for intense passion mixed with rage, joy by a people who consider themselves already freed.
Interesting how American interviewers persist on asking if Islamists, the Brotherhood would jump into the void if Mubarak steps out. Over and over they ask who might be behind this spontaneous explosion...let's blame it on Tunisia, could be that Iran's 18 month old student uprising may have influenced Egyptians, or the recent pseudo elections where Mubarak enjoyed unanimous sweep of votes nationwide after kicking opposition candidates off the ballot, that must have been the last straw.
But listening to the street and Egyptian Americans who were interviewed after Mubarak's speech to the people where he supposedly was instructed to speak of reforms, sooth the anger..people clearly said Mubarak "either doesnt understand Arabic i.e. you must go or he is insulting the intelligence of the Egyptian people."
With Sulimon's appointment as 'vice president aka hatchet man for what's to come' there's all sorts of predictions...Gamal is now clearly out of the picture, so that means Sulimon will succeed Mubarak ..right?
I'll suggest that if Sulimon has been entrusted to take Mubarak's place, its with a priviso that Sulimon install Gamal once the country has been secured by the military. I wonder how Sulimon feels watching his soldiers wave flowers, shakes hands of protesters and wave while people mount and ride their tanks with them inside. But these are the lower ranks, the sons and brothers I mentioned previously who know and are related to protesters...as one Egyptian mentioned, every family has one son, brother or uncle in the Army. Its extended family, unlike the street police who are trained in torture and intimidation to keep citizens in line.
Layer upon layer of entrenched repression all built to ensure the power and autocracy of one man, not one people.
Mussolini came to mind yesterday. The same stout no neck arrogance. Italians finally caught up with their dictator, strung him up by his ankles, slit his gut so he hung upside down and bled to death.
I think there actually needs to be serious consideration given to providing therapists with expertise in PTSD for Egypt. A people do not live through years of this kind of mental and physical abuse, declare themselves free while screaming in the street, a man who may have been tortured in prison for trumped charges as many have, a man who may have not had work to support one or two families and all his children-the complexities of what is to be dealt with emotionally has not yet been discussed, but if there is to be a successful outcome, people need help dealing with their rage and grief. Many people have died in these 30 years, many more have found ways to flee the country and patriate elsewhere to make a life and are emotionally estranged from those they left behind.
The hard work is yet ahead...
While filming the exuberance and vehemence of protesters yelling and screaming into the camera "We dont want you! go!, get out!, go!, we hate you..." Nic Robertson noted that after 30 years of repressed frustrations Egyptians spoke with "unmodulated emotion"...euphemistic phrasing for intense passion mixed with rage, joy by a people who consider themselves already freed.
Interesting how American interviewers persist on asking if Islamists, the Brotherhood would jump into the void if Mubarak steps out. Over and over they ask who might be behind this spontaneous explosion...let's blame it on Tunisia, could be that Iran's 18 month old student uprising may have influenced Egyptians, or the recent pseudo elections where Mubarak enjoyed unanimous sweep of votes nationwide after kicking opposition candidates off the ballot, that must have been the last straw.
But listening to the street and Egyptian Americans who were interviewed after Mubarak's speech to the people where he supposedly was instructed to speak of reforms, sooth the anger..people clearly said Mubarak "either doesnt understand Arabic i.e. you must go or he is insulting the intelligence of the Egyptian people."
With Sulimon's appointment as 'vice president aka hatchet man for what's to come' there's all sorts of predictions...Gamal is now clearly out of the picture, so that means Sulimon will succeed Mubarak ..right?
I'll suggest that if Sulimon has been entrusted to take Mubarak's place, its with a priviso that Sulimon install Gamal once the country has been secured by the military. I wonder how Sulimon feels watching his soldiers wave flowers, shakes hands of protesters and wave while people mount and ride their tanks with them inside. But these are the lower ranks, the sons and brothers I mentioned previously who know and are related to protesters...as one Egyptian mentioned, every family has one son, brother or uncle in the Army. Its extended family, unlike the street police who are trained in torture and intimidation to keep citizens in line.
Layer upon layer of entrenched repression all built to ensure the power and autocracy of one man, not one people.
Mussolini came to mind yesterday. The same stout no neck arrogance. Italians finally caught up with their dictator, strung him up by his ankles, slit his gut so he hung upside down and bled to death.
I think there actually needs to be serious consideration given to providing therapists with expertise in PTSD for Egypt. A people do not live through years of this kind of mental and physical abuse, declare themselves free while screaming in the street, a man who may have been tortured in prison for trumped charges as many have, a man who may have not had work to support one or two families and all his children-the complexities of what is to be dealt with emotionally has not yet been discussed, but if there is to be a successful outcome, people need help dealing with their rage and grief. Many people have died in these 30 years, many more have found ways to flee the country and patriate elsewhere to make a life and are emotionally estranged from those they left behind.
The hard work is yet ahead...
Friday, January 28, 2011
Cut the head off a snake....
and the tail continues to wiggle. There can be no reform in Egypt with the entrenched dictatorship that had years of opportunity to enact legitmate and productive changes that would have made Egypt a model for other ME countries.
Egypt doesnt need American architects to run and build monstrously ugly vanity buildings as are now in Qatar, Doha that sit empty. Egypt needs a dismantling of its baksheesh system.
I'm no expert on how to do that, but as of this writing, if you can't pay you dont get anything, or anywhere. From standing for hours waiting for a piece of stamped paper at the Ministry office, which has notably been ransacked this evening, then being told to return another day...the paper stamper had to leave the office early tough luck. Citizens who travel hours or days from the countryside for documents, left stranded in Cairo without receiving what they came for.
People existing on a bowl of fuul and pita, hot tea, those who can make $2 a day-this is not the rule, these are the underemployed lucky folks who do have jobs.
Students graduate from American University in Cairo after their parents paid for american style courses, with american dollars with the hope that their kids can escape the country and make a future elsewhere-there is very little opportunity even for the educated elite who can afford thousands in education each year.
So what do people do? They hustle, sweet talk one another, sit in cafe's and smoke sheesha, talk ad talk, go online.
There was an era now gone where garbage was collected by an entire neighborhood of junk sellers who individually collected wagons of metal scrap, newspapers, rags and recycling everything.
People live in cemeteries...let the US media visit the City of the Dead where generations of families take up residence in tombs because they cant afford housing and they are then paid to upkeep the graves of those wealthier who won't/cant do it themselves. Or visit apartment buildings and as you walk into the lobby look under the stairways, all older buildings in Cairo have stairwells, you'll find families or a single man living inside a tiny crawl space locked door while maintaining the rest of the building.
Women live on traffic islands with their children! if they are widowed, divorced without maintenance, disgraced, homeless. All this has to have been in front of Mr. Mubarak eyes as he drove by in his bulletproof BMW or maybe Suzanne noticed it on one of her literacy tours around the country.
Urging Egyptians to read when their bellies are empty, their apartments filled with family to the point of indecency.
Apt buildings built with cement or concrete mixed with sawdust so that its expection to remain standing is a decade or less.
Bread flour cut with a variety of unknown and known products so that this most essential food remains affordable.
The tragedy is all of the above and then none of these points, because much of Africa and other ME countries are not living in much better situations. But Egyptians are different and that is the difference.
There is potential, not only in the college educated youth, the older generation who lived pre Nassar and through that revolution, the generation who lost land and wealth to see the fruits of their labors redistributed, they have much to advise now and should be listened to. They've lived thru loss and upheaval. The great theater artists and writers of Egypt who have had to encode their work, their comedies, their movies to pass by the censors-they have the intellectual insight to contribute because they've been speaking of the ills, corruption and keeping the hearts of the Egyptian people whole with humor throughout all the decades of waiting for the better moment, the real opportunity, the rebuilding of what was once a noble and great country. There is unique potential Mr. Mubarak was so greedy and stupid to grow and build upon. He could have ruled by popularity for restoring a great country.
Even now...as the revolution unfolds, Egyptians for the most part show themselves as the people they are. They are not Americans, running and rioting, looting and stealing...and they are poorer and hungier than any American can imagine. They welcomed the Army as it settled in, expexting the Army arrived as their compatriots, they are looking at the military as their guardians. They know these men and boys as the successful ones, the cousins, brothers, uncles, the boy next door who got accepted in the Army, a prestigious moment for an Egyptian family-they look to these boys with clean hearts not suspecting that the butt of those guns may now be used to end their dreams, possibly their lives.
Once again, the future of Egypt and its people is in the hands of its sons in uniform. Only G-d can make this miracle and move their hearts in the right direction.
Egypt doesnt need American architects to run and build monstrously ugly vanity buildings as are now in Qatar, Doha that sit empty. Egypt needs a dismantling of its baksheesh system.
I'm no expert on how to do that, but as of this writing, if you can't pay you dont get anything, or anywhere. From standing for hours waiting for a piece of stamped paper at the Ministry office, which has notably been ransacked this evening, then being told to return another day...the paper stamper had to leave the office early tough luck. Citizens who travel hours or days from the countryside for documents, left stranded in Cairo without receiving what they came for.
People existing on a bowl of fuul and pita, hot tea, those who can make $2 a day-this is not the rule, these are the underemployed lucky folks who do have jobs.
Students graduate from American University in Cairo after their parents paid for american style courses, with american dollars with the hope that their kids can escape the country and make a future elsewhere-there is very little opportunity even for the educated elite who can afford thousands in education each year.
So what do people do? They hustle, sweet talk one another, sit in cafe's and smoke sheesha, talk ad talk, go online.
There was an era now gone where garbage was collected by an entire neighborhood of junk sellers who individually collected wagons of metal scrap, newspapers, rags and recycling everything.
People live in cemeteries...let the US media visit the City of the Dead where generations of families take up residence in tombs because they cant afford housing and they are then paid to upkeep the graves of those wealthier who won't/cant do it themselves. Or visit apartment buildings and as you walk into the lobby look under the stairways, all older buildings in Cairo have stairwells, you'll find families or a single man living inside a tiny crawl space locked door while maintaining the rest of the building.
Women live on traffic islands with their children! if they are widowed, divorced without maintenance, disgraced, homeless. All this has to have been in front of Mr. Mubarak eyes as he drove by in his bulletproof BMW or maybe Suzanne noticed it on one of her literacy tours around the country.
Urging Egyptians to read when their bellies are empty, their apartments filled with family to the point of indecency.
Apt buildings built with cement or concrete mixed with sawdust so that its expection to remain standing is a decade or less.
Bread flour cut with a variety of unknown and known products so that this most essential food remains affordable.
The tragedy is all of the above and then none of these points, because much of Africa and other ME countries are not living in much better situations. But Egyptians are different and that is the difference.
There is potential, not only in the college educated youth, the older generation who lived pre Nassar and through that revolution, the generation who lost land and wealth to see the fruits of their labors redistributed, they have much to advise now and should be listened to. They've lived thru loss and upheaval. The great theater artists and writers of Egypt who have had to encode their work, their comedies, their movies to pass by the censors-they have the intellectual insight to contribute because they've been speaking of the ills, corruption and keeping the hearts of the Egyptian people whole with humor throughout all the decades of waiting for the better moment, the real opportunity, the rebuilding of what was once a noble and great country. There is unique potential Mr. Mubarak was so greedy and stupid to grow and build upon. He could have ruled by popularity for restoring a great country.
Even now...as the revolution unfolds, Egyptians for the most part show themselves as the people they are. They are not Americans, running and rioting, looting and stealing...and they are poorer and hungier than any American can imagine. They welcomed the Army as it settled in, expexting the Army arrived as their compatriots, they are looking at the military as their guardians. They know these men and boys as the successful ones, the cousins, brothers, uncles, the boy next door who got accepted in the Army, a prestigious moment for an Egyptian family-they look to these boys with clean hearts not suspecting that the butt of those guns may now be used to end their dreams, possibly their lives.
Once again, the future of Egypt and its people is in the hands of its sons in uniform. Only G-d can make this miracle and move their hearts in the right direction.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
a child will set them free...
So the 'young generation' of Egypt is claiming the mantel of revolution, removing the onus from their elders who are automatically scapegoated by the dictator and his military, his police, his spies who stroll around, who watch and listen. It seems only the young can accomplish revolution. Not because the old are not willing, not because we wont offer outselves up in sacrifice for freedom, I think a young mind has a kernel of a dream, an ideal still in their hearts that a tank, machine guns, gas, clubs would not fall quite so hard.
700 people gathered up by police on Wednesday. My last visit was in 2002, I'm sure alot has changed, certainly the garbage collectors who for generations collected and recycled those bags tossed from 8th floor buildings are out of work now. Bread probably has more non-flour elements baked into it as the price of wheat rises. But the government machine, not the clerk who peeled squash at her desk for that nights dinner or the woman who refused to look at the pile of forms as we stood after waiting 45 minutes for our turn to come to stand in front of her...no not these people who struggle even within a job to remain alive, to function within a dysfunctioning world of insanity. I use the term 'insanity' cautiously having spent time in Shubra elKhamra, read the translated works of Mahfouz and spending many evenings watching Mohamed Sobhi with his ensemble trying to make sense of the senseless ways Life can be in Egypt.
The obdurance is governmental for the most part,not the citizens. I was told an anecdote by an Egyptian who applied for the police academy who the system works within. New recruits are brutalized by senior classmen, ordered to do despicable things, beaten, humiliated and so it goes each level abuses the one beneath until graduation and then the rage is packaged with a uniform, complete with an idealogy that everything that policeman and the priviledges he enjoys at clubs, shopping as well as the respect all of it is predicated on his loyalty to the regime. If the regime topples, so goes his job.
And that is the unfortunate lie both the police and military are fed and believe. This brainwashing was effective when the regime came in 3 decades go before cell phones and online social media. Oxygen and light has exposed the stench of greed, theft, lies and betrayals...and worse. But as the current regime managed to play patty cake with the US they have been proped up, held together despite the internal misery to its citizens while US officials publically cry out for social justice in Egypt, they pay the regime to remain intact...because until now the US doesnt have an intellectual understanding (altho its getting better) of how people think, speak and do not speak while thinking to themselves.
The United States is at the same crossroad Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Jordan, Syria finds themselves-except the US is an interloper now. It may not have been the intention to start, it has evolved into this role. It is not as Rand Paul suggested today that we de-fund all foreign aid, as our own economy can no longer handle borrowing from China to pay to prop up all these countries, the point is one of moral principle-we do not have anything to contribute now except more dirty money-the children have grown, they have seen online, spoken on their cells, texted images across continents without ever leaving their neighborhoods. Egyptians know the bogeyman sits in Egypt, not in the WH and finally realize, they dont have to take it anymore.
It's easy for all of us to sit and watch, those of us who are watching, and expect great human sacrifices might be required before change can happen. But Egypt is not Afghanistan or Pakistan. It is the nature of its people, a warmth, humor and human intelligence that allows them to endure long days and even longer nights, that will likely not leave room for sudden flourishing of jihadists that so worries the rest of the world when unrest rumbles in the ME.
This is such a moment of hope both for Egypt and other ME countries. In some ways the world needs to step aside and let the young of Egypt take their one chance...it may not come around again in their lifetime if their courage wavers. Step aside unless you can keep communication lines open (Twitter, FB etc), step aside with your vacuous patronizing comments Mrs. Clinton, this is a generation in search of its own hero, only G-d knows if a hero can exist to lead this generation to freedom without being martyred.
This is not about Islam, not about Bin Laden or hate, not about antisemitism...its about people wanting freedom to choose, think, speak without fear, to live and grow. How that cry for freedom does not resonate to the core of Americans and Jews in particular, is inexplicable for me.
Give a man a piece of bread to eat, you've filled his belly for a day. Give him seeds and a rake, you can show him how to feed himself and his family.
I could sit here and yammer on and on...there's so much to write and so much that is better left unsaid. But I feel Egypt and Israel and its a hard love to explain maybe unless you've been there...
700 people gathered up by police on Wednesday. My last visit was in 2002, I'm sure alot has changed, certainly the garbage collectors who for generations collected and recycled those bags tossed from 8th floor buildings are out of work now. Bread probably has more non-flour elements baked into it as the price of wheat rises. But the government machine, not the clerk who peeled squash at her desk for that nights dinner or the woman who refused to look at the pile of forms as we stood after waiting 45 minutes for our turn to come to stand in front of her...no not these people who struggle even within a job to remain alive, to function within a dysfunctioning world of insanity. I use the term 'insanity' cautiously having spent time in Shubra elKhamra, read the translated works of Mahfouz and spending many evenings watching Mohamed Sobhi with his ensemble trying to make sense of the senseless ways Life can be in Egypt.
The obdurance is governmental for the most part,not the citizens. I was told an anecdote by an Egyptian who applied for the police academy who the system works within. New recruits are brutalized by senior classmen, ordered to do despicable things, beaten, humiliated and so it goes each level abuses the one beneath until graduation and then the rage is packaged with a uniform, complete with an idealogy that everything that policeman and the priviledges he enjoys at clubs, shopping as well as the respect all of it is predicated on his loyalty to the regime. If the regime topples, so goes his job.
And that is the unfortunate lie both the police and military are fed and believe. This brainwashing was effective when the regime came in 3 decades go before cell phones and online social media. Oxygen and light has exposed the stench of greed, theft, lies and betrayals...and worse. But as the current regime managed to play patty cake with the US they have been proped up, held together despite the internal misery to its citizens while US officials publically cry out for social justice in Egypt, they pay the regime to remain intact...because until now the US doesnt have an intellectual understanding (altho its getting better) of how people think, speak and do not speak while thinking to themselves.
The United States is at the same crossroad Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Jordan, Syria finds themselves-except the US is an interloper now. It may not have been the intention to start, it has evolved into this role. It is not as Rand Paul suggested today that we de-fund all foreign aid, as our own economy can no longer handle borrowing from China to pay to prop up all these countries, the point is one of moral principle-we do not have anything to contribute now except more dirty money-the children have grown, they have seen online, spoken on their cells, texted images across continents without ever leaving their neighborhoods. Egyptians know the bogeyman sits in Egypt, not in the WH and finally realize, they dont have to take it anymore.
It's easy for all of us to sit and watch, those of us who are watching, and expect great human sacrifices might be required before change can happen. But Egypt is not Afghanistan or Pakistan. It is the nature of its people, a warmth, humor and human intelligence that allows them to endure long days and even longer nights, that will likely not leave room for sudden flourishing of jihadists that so worries the rest of the world when unrest rumbles in the ME.
This is such a moment of hope both for Egypt and other ME countries. In some ways the world needs to step aside and let the young of Egypt take their one chance...it may not come around again in their lifetime if their courage wavers. Step aside unless you can keep communication lines open (Twitter, FB etc), step aside with your vacuous patronizing comments Mrs. Clinton, this is a generation in search of its own hero, only G-d knows if a hero can exist to lead this generation to freedom without being martyred.
This is not about Islam, not about Bin Laden or hate, not about antisemitism...its about people wanting freedom to choose, think, speak without fear, to live and grow. How that cry for freedom does not resonate to the core of Americans and Jews in particular, is inexplicable for me.
Give a man a piece of bread to eat, you've filled his belly for a day. Give him seeds and a rake, you can show him how to feed himself and his family.
I could sit here and yammer on and on...there's so much to write and so much that is better left unsaid. But I feel Egypt and Israel and its a hard love to explain maybe unless you've been there...
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Coming of age....
We are watching as the Middle East experiences labor pains-the struggle for human rights in Egypt and other countries ruled by military and police, bribes, thuggery, is no different from the pains experienced by any people, in any country. This is not about Arab/Jew, this is a time of hope and great challenges for people outside and surrounding Israel who have lived in and grown up in almost complete censorship, about the world, about Jews, generations of Arabs fed lies, leaving them in such despair cloaked as 'jihad' that murder and death remains the preference until now.
It took a Jew named Zuckerberg to create a mechanism that allows people everywhere to communicate, for better or worse, and Julian Assange & Co. to provide documents exposing dialogues that will ultimately set us all free from decades of lies. No one believes it will be as cut & dried or painless as scribbled here...but herein lies Hope.
There is no comfort for Jews when the world is on fire, even when others know it has nothing to do with the Jews, and they know it now, governments have stolen everything from mother's children to use a tools for murder, to children's futures with useless educations, rotting infrastructures...Mubarak didnt send his son and heir to another arab country, he sent him to the UK to preserve any hope he might return to rule in the future.
Egypt-whatever our relationship is with this nation where we once resided, worked as slaves and left for freedom by G-d's hand, as Jews individually or collectively, mercy remains the mark of a civilized man, let us pray that this part of the world experiences its rebirth as completely as possible, as G-d wills it.
It took a Jew named Zuckerberg to create a mechanism that allows people everywhere to communicate, for better or worse, and Julian Assange & Co. to provide documents exposing dialogues that will ultimately set us all free from decades of lies. No one believes it will be as cut & dried or painless as scribbled here...but herein lies Hope.
There is no comfort for Jews when the world is on fire, even when others know it has nothing to do with the Jews, and they know it now, governments have stolen everything from mother's children to use a tools for murder, to children's futures with useless educations, rotting infrastructures...Mubarak didnt send his son and heir to another arab country, he sent him to the UK to preserve any hope he might return to rule in the future.
Egypt-whatever our relationship is with this nation where we once resided, worked as slaves and left for freedom by G-d's hand, as Jews individually or collectively, mercy remains the mark of a civilized man, let us pray that this part of the world experiences its rebirth as completely as possible, as G-d wills it.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Riddle dee dee...
Said Squirrel Nutkin as he jigged a dance in front of the inscrutable Mr. Owl who peered at him with half closed eyes.
So that has nothing to do with anything except it came to mind as I got home today. The day began with dropping things are home, usually a forerunner of things to come and I thought, its going to be one of THOSE days and I certainly wasn't disappointed. Sometimes I wonder if G-d has someone who works on these types of days for him, someone assigned specifically to toss the raw egg out from between your fingertips or jerk the cane to the floor as you juggle packages and cannot bend easily...oh yes, its all self driven. Karma...think pink and you'll bring rosy vibes into your life.
I went out trying to get important stuff done before the next load of snow hits later this week. Had a script sitting waiting for pickup so I could have a spine MRI done, got that and asked if nurse or tech could please do the required demo for an injectable med that we've been waiting for MONTHS to receive from speciality mail order pharmacy. Such a person is not in office today, here's her number call her on Tues. Take MRI script to radiology and holding myself from begging due to p.a.i.n ask if there's anyway possible the MRI could be done today, I'll sit and wait as long as necessary..huh??? They're booked until closing at 10:30pm. What's another week...I'm chewing pain meds anyway its so bad now.
OKay, so the primary reasons for going out in 5 degree weather are shot down...is there anything that can be accomplished within the small radius I can walk while I'm outside? Pet store! Trying to get cats to leave furniture alone, I buy a scratching post. They've shredded 2 chairs and are now working on the mattress I sleep on.
On the way to subway by the farmers market, I stop to buy a baguette and a homeless gentleman plants himself in front of me as I juggle 2 bags, a cane and fish for my wallet. Knowing me and how the day's gone so far, my attention is fully on one thing only at a time-so he turns away pissed because I dont respond to him immediately. Once the baguette is paid for and my change is being turned over, I ask for a large cookie and pull out a dollar bill to go with the cookie and walk over to him.
His back to the wind, he trying to light a small cigarette butt but the matchbook looks even shabbier than he does when he turns around to face me. He is amazingly filthy, only the cold prevents any odor hitting me standing less than half foot away from him. I hand him the cookie, he doesnt even look at it and crams it into one of his many pockets, then I give him the dollar. He says, "I havent eaten in 6 days, ya got a ten on ya?"
The world is in a very strange place...I do recall learning in Chabad that even when giving tzaddakah you should strive to give a person what he is accustomed to having in his life. You wouldnt give stale bread or pennies to someone who once ate fresh meat, soft bread and wine. However maybe I missed the dictum on how someone who receives charity is to respond or behave upon receipt. Since I've been on both sides of this difficult position in life, I found it shameful to need and receive while being so deeply grateful whether it was for me alone or for me and family. As for giving, if I have it, you can have some too.
The only time I've drawn the line is for the ubiquitous quartets strumming guitars and maracas in the subway. If you come here illegally, have multiple babies you cant support just to ensure you'll never be forced to return home, you dont need my help, you're more naive than Squirrel Nutkin thinking he can rhyme and dance forever and Mr. Owl will just silently stand there like the fool he appears to be.
As Eliyahu ha Navi and ex husbands taught me, appearances can be very deceiving.
So that has nothing to do with anything except it came to mind as I got home today. The day began with dropping things are home, usually a forerunner of things to come and I thought, its going to be one of THOSE days and I certainly wasn't disappointed. Sometimes I wonder if G-d has someone who works on these types of days for him, someone assigned specifically to toss the raw egg out from between your fingertips or jerk the cane to the floor as you juggle packages and cannot bend easily...oh yes, its all self driven. Karma...think pink and you'll bring rosy vibes into your life.
I went out trying to get important stuff done before the next load of snow hits later this week. Had a script sitting waiting for pickup so I could have a spine MRI done, got that and asked if nurse or tech could please do the required demo for an injectable med that we've been waiting for MONTHS to receive from speciality mail order pharmacy. Such a person is not in office today, here's her number call her on Tues. Take MRI script to radiology and holding myself from begging due to p.a.i.n ask if there's anyway possible the MRI could be done today, I'll sit and wait as long as necessary..huh??? They're booked until closing at 10:30pm. What's another week...I'm chewing pain meds anyway its so bad now.
OKay, so the primary reasons for going out in 5 degree weather are shot down...is there anything that can be accomplished within the small radius I can walk while I'm outside? Pet store! Trying to get cats to leave furniture alone, I buy a scratching post. They've shredded 2 chairs and are now working on the mattress I sleep on.
On the way to subway by the farmers market, I stop to buy a baguette and a homeless gentleman plants himself in front of me as I juggle 2 bags, a cane and fish for my wallet. Knowing me and how the day's gone so far, my attention is fully on one thing only at a time-so he turns away pissed because I dont respond to him immediately. Once the baguette is paid for and my change is being turned over, I ask for a large cookie and pull out a dollar bill to go with the cookie and walk over to him.
His back to the wind, he trying to light a small cigarette butt but the matchbook looks even shabbier than he does when he turns around to face me. He is amazingly filthy, only the cold prevents any odor hitting me standing less than half foot away from him. I hand him the cookie, he doesnt even look at it and crams it into one of his many pockets, then I give him the dollar. He says, "I havent eaten in 6 days, ya got a ten on ya?"
The world is in a very strange place...I do recall learning in Chabad that even when giving tzaddakah you should strive to give a person what he is accustomed to having in his life. You wouldnt give stale bread or pennies to someone who once ate fresh meat, soft bread and wine. However maybe I missed the dictum on how someone who receives charity is to respond or behave upon receipt. Since I've been on both sides of this difficult position in life, I found it shameful to need and receive while being so deeply grateful whether it was for me alone or for me and family. As for giving, if I have it, you can have some too.
The only time I've drawn the line is for the ubiquitous quartets strumming guitars and maracas in the subway. If you come here illegally, have multiple babies you cant support just to ensure you'll never be forced to return home, you dont need my help, you're more naive than Squirrel Nutkin thinking he can rhyme and dance forever and Mr. Owl will just silently stand there like the fool he appears to be.
As Eliyahu ha Navi and ex husbands taught me, appearances can be very deceiving.
Fixing Yahrzeit
After months passed with insurance company denying meds, procrastinating because company was bought out by another and my meds are expensive. So its been 6 months waiting for them to sort out permissions to send me medications. And then everything arrives separately via USPS, FEdEX and UPS-I kid you not, 4 packages in one day, UPS morning shift and evening. The new injectable requires needles, that werent prescribed and the tech in the pharmacy never thought to ask, would the patient need a call? should we call the Dr.? So now we wait for needles to arrive.
I gave up trying to be the med martyr who avoids taking pain meds and just had to start. My hip/leg folds or gives out if I turn the wrong way and the pain all night is indescribable. Going into the City Monday, since its noted as a no snow day, altho freezing temps, because for some reason I have to pick up the script for the MRI, the office staff cannot call in and ask to schedule an MRI. I also told them my insurance does not require pre authorization, 'o yes' said Dr. and then 2 weeks later, a call comes in telling me they didnt need pre-autorization, should they mail the script or will I pick it up. Since radiology is one floor down, I take the train into the city, try to manage some minor errands and maybe I can have the MRI done tomorrow, but things dont work that way.
Its been so cold both cats crawl under the blankets to sleep during the day, when not trying to sit on the window sill. Mr. B is so cranky he spends too much time hissing at shortie who just wants to cuddle on the open window, smell the smells and see the sights...little that there is, but still its better than being hissed at.
I found a 2 volume set of ArtScroll complete Weekly Midrashim for $10. Sure its more than that and now looking for a kosher english chumash with Rashi.
Key word is affordable...there's plenty out there if you want to pay hundreds of dollars.
I'm on edge over something that may be ridiculous...my father died in '73 and no one's said kaddish (my kaddish done in ignorance meant nothing) either for the first year or correcctly on the yahrzeit. So I got a book on Jewish mourning etc. and I have the date for the yahrzeit but I'm not sending $300 into a black hole with the hope that someone will say kaddish each year for him now. So I made a vow that beginning this yahrzeit I'll fast and say tehillim but wanted to pay someone in a minyan to do kaddish corectly. Since I approached Chabad 3 separate times regarding some critical documents of my own and received 1 response months after my first letter, I dont think this is something to waste time with chabad who cant make up their minds that I deserve to be acknowledged or shunned. On the other hand, Conservative where he davened at Ansche Chesed didnt want to get involved when he died, so I cant go back there....or maybe I could call there...that might be interesting.
Well let this be a lesson to those ghosts who pass by here and read, then disappear without a words...a Jew cant exist as a Jew without a Jewish community-its a communal life dependent on others for traditional things like kaddish, burial and every other means of support. I go day by day trying to do the upkeep of being religious by davening and studying etc. but have no one to turn to for serious stuff because I walked away...
There's also a quote a heard this afternoon...that as long as abuse, in this context it was about an alcoholic parent that a child never discussed with outsiders, as long as it was not discussed outside the family circle, the abuse has no name, it doesnt exist, isnt acknowledged...imagine when you cannot bring up the subject either outside or to immediate family members, like the other parent! Not only may you not consider yourself abused, you may not mention it the next morning after you put the drunk parent to bed and sang him to sleep or found your mother cut up by a glass bottle...so in a nutshell, your sense of reality, literally all five senses cannot trust their perceptions; whatever sensory intake occurs must go through intense processing...and still does. I think this is why my last therapy attempt was a flop. I made the emotional investment to try one last time to speak to a Jewish therapist, an older modern orthodox male, and thought that him knowing and hopefully understanding the destruction of intermarriage on both spouses and the kids, the alcoholism and everything lese, that he would have some insight into my inability to connect with most people places and things. Maybe 7:30am was too early for him to empathize or offer suggestions on what to read or how to cope, he said, 'oh so you had a chaotic childhood...lots of people have'
So I thought more so of my daughters who began to have a discussion with me and between themselves about sexual abuse, questioning some family behaviours and then deciding to close the box, after opening it a bit and seeing what the reactions might be. Since I came from a world where no one would help me or advocate for me and its decades later, I heard such things that I was ready to go to war, confront abusers.
I need to have my will rewritten. It makes no sense to reward everyone equally when silence is a tyranny held over their heads, keeping these secrets buried...and my daughters may find themselves later in life, like their mother with physical illnesses where the stress of having to interpret every word, nuance and communication by peers, bosses, colleagues so that you learn how to function in the world. These behaviors are learned almost in infancy, in bonding, trust, letting go, learning to stand and walk, self independence--if you dont pattern these things early, you spend your life trying to learn them, but the problem is each life situation presents a new set of circumstances and what you learned on your own, doesnt seem to apply to the new chaos in front of you. You misread cues, misunderstand what people mean, you feel out of place, confused, lied to, frightened...and that's on a good day.
I think a mistake made by psych professionals is to think all sexual abuse by adults comes after those same adults were victims of similar abuse. Sex is a language, the most intimate and vulnerable of communications. If you are bottled up with rage, as we see more and more in this generation, the manifestation of trying to communicate the paranoia, confusion, distrust often appears sexual as its acted out, but it becomes non-sexual as sex is not the action, its the mode of transsmission for violating in adult terms the experience that a child could not articulate-the power and control by an adult is so vast and terrifying to a child who must depend on such adults-that later on what bubbles up appears disconnected to the present. "He seemed like a nice guy"
Lord if we live in the days of Moshiach, let us go home already. You once asked Avraham to find just 10 men worthy to keep this world afloat...look around, and no matter what Chabad or Manis is spouting about the simcha and joy to spread in these wonderful times of Moshiach, look around, read the press dear Lord and ask yourself how much longer you can stomach what humanity is doing to itself and your creation.
If there was hope for redemption after WWII...it trickled in as stories of 'righteous gentiles' saved Jews, while others stole and hid everything they could steal from Jews, art, jewels...lives.
I read Tehillim every day, King David asks for more years, after a man cannot praise G-d in Sheol; David wants to live to be able to praise and thank G-d. Maybe that's why my mother had nothing to say in the last days before she died...maybe the only thing she knew was that death was coming, there was little to discuss, her job was to wait...I doubt my mother had the capacity to ponder even as superficially as that, but as much as I love Him, its a mess down here.
I gave up trying to be the med martyr who avoids taking pain meds and just had to start. My hip/leg folds or gives out if I turn the wrong way and the pain all night is indescribable. Going into the City Monday, since its noted as a no snow day, altho freezing temps, because for some reason I have to pick up the script for the MRI, the office staff cannot call in and ask to schedule an MRI. I also told them my insurance does not require pre authorization, 'o yes' said Dr. and then 2 weeks later, a call comes in telling me they didnt need pre-autorization, should they mail the script or will I pick it up. Since radiology is one floor down, I take the train into the city, try to manage some minor errands and maybe I can have the MRI done tomorrow, but things dont work that way.
Its been so cold both cats crawl under the blankets to sleep during the day, when not trying to sit on the window sill. Mr. B is so cranky he spends too much time hissing at shortie who just wants to cuddle on the open window, smell the smells and see the sights...little that there is, but still its better than being hissed at.
I found a 2 volume set of ArtScroll complete Weekly Midrashim for $10. Sure its more than that and now looking for a kosher english chumash with Rashi.
Key word is affordable...there's plenty out there if you want to pay hundreds of dollars.
I'm on edge over something that may be ridiculous...my father died in '73 and no one's said kaddish (my kaddish done in ignorance meant nothing) either for the first year or correcctly on the yahrzeit. So I got a book on Jewish mourning etc. and I have the date for the yahrzeit but I'm not sending $300 into a black hole with the hope that someone will say kaddish each year for him now. So I made a vow that beginning this yahrzeit I'll fast and say tehillim but wanted to pay someone in a minyan to do kaddish corectly. Since I approached Chabad 3 separate times regarding some critical documents of my own and received 1 response months after my first letter, I dont think this is something to waste time with chabad who cant make up their minds that I deserve to be acknowledged or shunned. On the other hand, Conservative where he davened at Ansche Chesed didnt want to get involved when he died, so I cant go back there....or maybe I could call there...that might be interesting.
Well let this be a lesson to those ghosts who pass by here and read, then disappear without a words...a Jew cant exist as a Jew without a Jewish community-its a communal life dependent on others for traditional things like kaddish, burial and every other means of support. I go day by day trying to do the upkeep of being religious by davening and studying etc. but have no one to turn to for serious stuff because I walked away...
There's also a quote a heard this afternoon...that as long as abuse, in this context it was about an alcoholic parent that a child never discussed with outsiders, as long as it was not discussed outside the family circle, the abuse has no name, it doesnt exist, isnt acknowledged...imagine when you cannot bring up the subject either outside or to immediate family members, like the other parent! Not only may you not consider yourself abused, you may not mention it the next morning after you put the drunk parent to bed and sang him to sleep or found your mother cut up by a glass bottle...so in a nutshell, your sense of reality, literally all five senses cannot trust their perceptions; whatever sensory intake occurs must go through intense processing...and still does. I think this is why my last therapy attempt was a flop. I made the emotional investment to try one last time to speak to a Jewish therapist, an older modern orthodox male, and thought that him knowing and hopefully understanding the destruction of intermarriage on both spouses and the kids, the alcoholism and everything lese, that he would have some insight into my inability to connect with most people places and things. Maybe 7:30am was too early for him to empathize or offer suggestions on what to read or how to cope, he said, 'oh so you had a chaotic childhood...lots of people have'
So I thought more so of my daughters who began to have a discussion with me and between themselves about sexual abuse, questioning some family behaviours and then deciding to close the box, after opening it a bit and seeing what the reactions might be. Since I came from a world where no one would help me or advocate for me and its decades later, I heard such things that I was ready to go to war, confront abusers.
I need to have my will rewritten. It makes no sense to reward everyone equally when silence is a tyranny held over their heads, keeping these secrets buried...and my daughters may find themselves later in life, like their mother with physical illnesses where the stress of having to interpret every word, nuance and communication by peers, bosses, colleagues so that you learn how to function in the world. These behaviors are learned almost in infancy, in bonding, trust, letting go, learning to stand and walk, self independence--if you dont pattern these things early, you spend your life trying to learn them, but the problem is each life situation presents a new set of circumstances and what you learned on your own, doesnt seem to apply to the new chaos in front of you. You misread cues, misunderstand what people mean, you feel out of place, confused, lied to, frightened...and that's on a good day.
I think a mistake made by psych professionals is to think all sexual abuse by adults comes after those same adults were victims of similar abuse. Sex is a language, the most intimate and vulnerable of communications. If you are bottled up with rage, as we see more and more in this generation, the manifestation of trying to communicate the paranoia, confusion, distrust often appears sexual as its acted out, but it becomes non-sexual as sex is not the action, its the mode of transsmission for violating in adult terms the experience that a child could not articulate-the power and control by an adult is so vast and terrifying to a child who must depend on such adults-that later on what bubbles up appears disconnected to the present. "He seemed like a nice guy"
Lord if we live in the days of Moshiach, let us go home already. You once asked Avraham to find just 10 men worthy to keep this world afloat...look around, and no matter what Chabad or Manis is spouting about the simcha and joy to spread in these wonderful times of Moshiach, look around, read the press dear Lord and ask yourself how much longer you can stomach what humanity is doing to itself and your creation.
If there was hope for redemption after WWII...it trickled in as stories of 'righteous gentiles' saved Jews, while others stole and hid everything they could steal from Jews, art, jewels...lives.
I read Tehillim every day, King David asks for more years, after a man cannot praise G-d in Sheol; David wants to live to be able to praise and thank G-d. Maybe that's why my mother had nothing to say in the last days before she died...maybe the only thing she knew was that death was coming, there was little to discuss, her job was to wait...I doubt my mother had the capacity to ponder even as superficially as that, but as much as I love Him, its a mess down here.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
EFT
Recently read something about Emotional Freedom Technique aka Tapping Therapy and as is my wont, bought a book to read, thereby avoiding human interaction on the subject.
I made it through to the part where you are taught the first set of tapping- called the set up I think and at the moment one is to begin tapping, I short circuited ad closed the book. That was about a week ago. The book is staring at me, I can almost hear it hissing what a coward I am.
Raised like those baby gorillas who clung to steel rods in their cages and pawed at pieces of cloth attempting to drum up something maternal to self nurture...I am not connected to me and touch. Which is an interesting phenom for a mother of many whom I love dearly, love to hug and kiss. Something happened way back there that must have been so traumatizing-I cant recall most of my childhood, except the alcoholic rages and terror of dealing with father. I nicknamed my mother The Ice Queen, mentally filing it because of course that could not be spoken. It was rare to speak, rarer to be spoken to unless it was to instruct what message to carry to father as they would often not speak to one another for weeks on end-I played messenger/mediator.
Someone on TV said last wk, "who are you" asking the viewer to wonder if they can answer that rhetorical. I have a list of verbs and nouns but frankly I dont have an identity. I've spent a lifetime trying to create myself, over and over. The only thing that I've no doubt on is G-d and the greatness of His gentle kindness to some people...well to all of us, but my life has been carried in someone's palm despite my falling off the track or venturing into worlds so foreign to Jews.
For years I thought it was just wanting to be loved, in fact, if you dont knw who you are it doesnt feel possible to know how to ask for love or how to know if you are loved, and that self revelation makes me realize what a precarious emotional situation I've lived in. Being estranged from who I probably should be, a mature adult female mother, former wife, educated college admin, there's not much more than a small girl and I really do fear becoming old and reaching dementia with the mind of a 3 yr old-I've worked hard against great odds to be better than that.
So what I was pondering was the difficulty in reading about the EFT and actually doing it. 2 years ago I was in physical therapy and the therapist, a young Israeli female, if that matters, began to massage my shoulders and neck and I began to cry. Unfortunately it quickly developed into that familiar feeling of grief that I cant explain, a kind of loss or sorrow..and just from a gentle touch that was not at all personal or sexual-it was a human touch as I sat, muscles cooling down. I think I scared her but it slipped out of my mouth before I could stop myself, 'I'm just not used to being touched'
And there it was...the difference between human touch where there is connection and cause versus violent rage or abuse of whatever kind went on. I still weep when I hear babies nearby screaming and screaming. How can anyone let an infant cry out and not comfort or tend to it?
But I live around Chinese...they dont molly coddle. My mother said, in her last days, in the depths of Alzheimers that her mistake with me was hiring a German nurse who let me scream while an infant for hours. She said, she came home once and found me gulping and screaming, the nurse said that's the only way to train a child not to be spoiled. My question to myself as I write is where the hell were you for hours gallavanting with an infant at home? You weren't working that's for sure.
I couldnt find any of my father's relatives on Ancestry and yesterday read where you can now do a DNA test for under $200 and found out not only what diseases you're prone to but also who you might be related to. Hypnosis can also peel back the curtains or chip at the granite pail we carry outselves in from here to there, day in and day out...forgive me Lorinne for borrowing your granite pail once again:-)
In a strange holding pattern right now. Cant sew, reading is difficult. I feel as if something is impending and I need to be ready-yes I'm know it, its that alert state that freezes and numbs at the same time, so basically I'm paralyzed and in a sink hole of my own thoughts. I woke at 4am this morning...ostensibly because Boo was purring next to me wanting to eat, but I've fed him and gone back to sleep. I lay bug eyed and then realized its useless, just get up and start the day.
It's late...
Monday, January 17, 2011
Laundry list
Maybe a quick laundry list of thoughts today
Barak didnt leave soon enough so BiBi could move forward and Livni should be escorted out the same door.
re: Berlusconi's bravado claim he never paid for sex...actually this narcissistic comment deserves more attention than I want to discuss today, but I've heard this directly and read it too often. Does this indiscreet and assinine comment excuse adulterous, self indulgent betrayals or does this comment indirectly mean women can't control themselves so what the heck, just get it anywhere, anyway. Of course in the context of contemporary historical events, in this age of Moshiach we are in, where up is down and left is right in the realm of human events, nothing much makes sense anymore which is why retiring with a copy of Tehillim and staying indoors seems the only solution.
In this one teeny corner of opinion, it is highly doubtful that stuxnet puts a damper on Iran's activities for 'years' because its more likely Iran was way ahead of all the global assumptions and deceptive statements made by the IAEA to cover up how advanced they actually are.
China feels the dollar is obsolete as a global currency and is pushing the yuan to replace it. Considering my entire neighborhood is now Chinese, still buying with cash, stores emptying and changing hands every 6 months, building codes on building heights being ignored in a residential area of 4 story buildings and let's not fall asleep with a recitation we already know that everything is made and badly so, in China...in another country, or maybe another time where politicians sell out their country and citizens for personal profit, it might well be considered treason.
NAFTA and the peculiar inability or refusal to protect America's borders from rampant immigrant overflow and gun running/drug/prostitution business is distanced from the daily realities of what America has come down to-the focus is switched to Assange & Co. disseminating information that those of us in the '60s could only dream of doing.
I read somewhere in the last couple of days that Obama is prepared to spend billions on the next election. Well, I did say that Emanuel did not go to Chicago (solely) for himself, he's there laying groundwork for 2012.
On a more personal note...my emails remain unanswered and calls not returned. And that's while I'm still in NY!
I was thinking this morning how or why G-d would create a life that experiences only rejection and hate.
An unwanted child, made fun of and bullied in school, isolated because of alcoholic parents, becomes religious thinking that's the solution for Life and Family, Community only to find more of the same.
I've come to the realization that some lives are meant to be for reasons unexplained-nothing special or heroic, maybe something that needed to be completed by a soul, or fixed from a last reincarnation but the expectation of being loved...like the expectation of happiness that Friedman writes is a misconception...we are not owed happiness and I guess we are not owed love, we are here only to serve G-d and it seems some people serve in ways that involves joy and family and others in solitude.
Barak didnt leave soon enough so BiBi could move forward and Livni should be escorted out the same door.
re: Berlusconi's bravado claim he never paid for sex...actually this narcissistic comment deserves more attention than I want to discuss today, but I've heard this directly and read it too often. Does this indiscreet and assinine comment excuse adulterous, self indulgent betrayals or does this comment indirectly mean women can't control themselves so what the heck, just get it anywhere, anyway. Of course in the context of contemporary historical events, in this age of Moshiach we are in, where up is down and left is right in the realm of human events, nothing much makes sense anymore which is why retiring with a copy of Tehillim and staying indoors seems the only solution.
In this one teeny corner of opinion, it is highly doubtful that stuxnet puts a damper on Iran's activities for 'years' because its more likely Iran was way ahead of all the global assumptions and deceptive statements made by the IAEA to cover up how advanced they actually are.
China feels the dollar is obsolete as a global currency and is pushing the yuan to replace it. Considering my entire neighborhood is now Chinese, still buying with cash, stores emptying and changing hands every 6 months, building codes on building heights being ignored in a residential area of 4 story buildings and let's not fall asleep with a recitation we already know that everything is made and badly so, in China...in another country, or maybe another time where politicians sell out their country and citizens for personal profit, it might well be considered treason.
NAFTA and the peculiar inability or refusal to protect America's borders from rampant immigrant overflow and gun running/drug/prostitution business is distanced from the daily realities of what America has come down to-the focus is switched to Assange & Co. disseminating information that those of us in the '60s could only dream of doing.
I read somewhere in the last couple of days that Obama is prepared to spend billions on the next election. Well, I did say that Emanuel did not go to Chicago (solely) for himself, he's there laying groundwork for 2012.
On a more personal note...my emails remain unanswered and calls not returned. And that's while I'm still in NY!
I was thinking this morning how or why G-d would create a life that experiences only rejection and hate.
An unwanted child, made fun of and bullied in school, isolated because of alcoholic parents, becomes religious thinking that's the solution for Life and Family, Community only to find more of the same.
I've come to the realization that some lives are meant to be for reasons unexplained-nothing special or heroic, maybe something that needed to be completed by a soul, or fixed from a last reincarnation but the expectation of being loved...like the expectation of happiness that Friedman writes is a misconception...we are not owed happiness and I guess we are not owed love, we are here only to serve G-d and it seems some people serve in ways that involves joy and family and others in solitude.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Poem, very bad shabbos
Submitted one poem to The Forward poetry contest commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Factory fire in NYC. Since submissions are held under 3yr copyright according to Forward contest rules, no can say nothing until a decision is made. If not published by them might post it here.
This is what depression can do...a choke-hold so thick and numbing I cant even go through decades of work, edit and put together a collection. And then a project like this comes by, its like a shot of adrenaline. Having time to do it certainly isnt the issue now. Anyone can do an eBook now, so I'm out of pathetic excuses.
I'm doing alot of self sabotaging-there's an element of terror of the unknown about moving and resettling in a new place. I dont feel genuine welcome elsewhere, suddenly my side of the fence doesnt seem so horrendous. Expensive, but at least a known horrendous is better than one unknown. The big issue for me now is what to do about health insurance until 2012.
Jamie Lee Curtis is weird, gives me the creeps with her anal controlling smile and organizational skills. Activia got sued, so now she's showing up in 'gyms' telling everyone that eating activia makes folks feel better, and when you 'feel better' you'll get out there and do more! Be more! A bottle of kefir is cheaper and 100x better.
oh yeah...shabbos...these short friday's are great in one way and freaky in that everything is going on, the garbage cant go out at 4:15, I left the bedroom lights on, I left way too many lights on in a tiny apt, so it was turn off something or no one would have slept last night. Shabbos meal was warmed up chicken soup that I couldnt eat and then had a craving for oatmeal at 11pm. 2nd time in 2 weeks this happened. I could understand craving chocolate, its oatmeal and I dump in fresh cranberries. Works better than activia.
But shabbos morning managed to daven shachris, read shabbos book of tehillim and parsha. I think after constantly promising Hashem there will be only increased positive movement and then finding myself in these flip flop situations is not very pleasing...considering all the positives He's
made in my life this past year and going forward.
Was craving scallion pancakes motzei shabbos and then wondered if there's a direct correlation during upsurge of societal depression levels and increased sales of cheap chinese take out?
We're supposed to live in the Now, I spend too much time in the What Might Happen zone, which is paralyzing.
Need to sleep...
This is what depression can do...a choke-hold so thick and numbing I cant even go through decades of work, edit and put together a collection. And then a project like this comes by, its like a shot of adrenaline. Having time to do it certainly isnt the issue now. Anyone can do an eBook now, so I'm out of pathetic excuses.
I'm doing alot of self sabotaging-there's an element of terror of the unknown about moving and resettling in a new place. I dont feel genuine welcome elsewhere, suddenly my side of the fence doesnt seem so horrendous. Expensive, but at least a known horrendous is better than one unknown. The big issue for me now is what to do about health insurance until 2012.
Jamie Lee Curtis is weird, gives me the creeps with her anal controlling smile and organizational skills. Activia got sued, so now she's showing up in 'gyms' telling everyone that eating activia makes folks feel better, and when you 'feel better' you'll get out there and do more! Be more! A bottle of kefir is cheaper and 100x better.
oh yeah...shabbos...these short friday's are great in one way and freaky in that everything is going on, the garbage cant go out at 4:15, I left the bedroom lights on, I left way too many lights on in a tiny apt, so it was turn off something or no one would have slept last night. Shabbos meal was warmed up chicken soup that I couldnt eat and then had a craving for oatmeal at 11pm. 2nd time in 2 weeks this happened. I could understand craving chocolate, its oatmeal and I dump in fresh cranberries. Works better than activia.
But shabbos morning managed to daven shachris, read shabbos book of tehillim and parsha. I think after constantly promising Hashem there will be only increased positive movement and then finding myself in these flip flop situations is not very pleasing...considering all the positives He's
made in my life this past year and going forward.
Was craving scallion pancakes motzei shabbos and then wondered if there's a direct correlation during upsurge of societal depression levels and increased sales of cheap chinese take out?
We're supposed to live in the Now, I spend too much time in the What Might Happen zone, which is paralyzing.
Need to sleep...
Friday, January 14, 2011
Tempus Fugit
Why not start the end of the week with a cliche? Better than beginning the week with one. Difficult few days. Scheduled for an lower spine MRI because walking now is so painful and I spent 2 days in a row going into the city, doctors and small errands. G-d I have to calculate and count everything I do now...what is the absolute necessity, what can I just leave out, how to combine activities to get more things done efficiently. But in the end the hot water bottle and bed rest doesnt cut the mustard anymore. Since I have pain medication and dont use it because of fears of addiction that run in the family, my doctor almost lost it last week and said USE THE PAIN MEDS. And so I did, but instead of taking a whole pill, they're made to split in half, so it was half before bed and if needed during the day. So the med got me through 'recuperating' which took about 3 days and then I can stop them without side effect or craving to use them.
Called SSD to ask whether moving and starting a relationship w new doctor meant starting anew with them. Rep said not at all, already approved means continue in treatment and we'll update with you as needed.
That information re-opens the door to find an apartment elsewhere, remaining in Brooklyn is impossible alone. I dont want to share living quarters w a stranger and even if I did, my current place now feels too small even for me and 2 cats.
My kids seem to have decided that it my job from NY to search for a place near them, they'll look into it and packing, moving is also on me. They're busy with work and social lives. Absolutely no urgency on their part to seriously help or get me there. I suppose this is payback for being an absent mother for so many years. Don't have the stomach even to think out loud about that right now.
Called SSD to ask whether moving and starting a relationship w new doctor meant starting anew with them. Rep said not at all, already approved means continue in treatment and we'll update with you as needed.
That information re-opens the door to find an apartment elsewhere, remaining in Brooklyn is impossible alone. I dont want to share living quarters w a stranger and even if I did, my current place now feels too small even for me and 2 cats.
My kids seem to have decided that it my job from NY to search for a place near them, they'll look into it and packing, moving is also on me. They're busy with work and social lives. Absolutely no urgency on their part to seriously help or get me there. I suppose this is payback for being an absent mother for so many years. Don't have the stomach even to think out loud about that right now.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Mental Illness, Airport Security
Another sniper attack, this one in AZ and coming a day after 14 decapitated bodies are found in Mexico, more children gone missing, abducted or murdered...and the media is once again trying to herd the nation in front of the electronic hearth for some cathartic chest pounding.
I quickly separated out my sympathy for the Gifford family and the other unknowns who died and those still in the hospital, but my nausea remains unappeased as bullet trajectories are pondered, diagrams and hypothesis that the particular shooting is a result of political rancor-either the media is now fully under the control of the current administration and this is the official stance, or stupidity reigns more supreme than I imagined.
There are thousands of folks who lost their jobs, homes, financial security, millions of others who see right through the political lies and politicians who keep selling out America to foreign interests because being a whore expeditiously lines their own pockets for their own families and why not, the ship is sinking, might as well make the best of it for ME...and of all us disenfranchised folk, dont see nobody going around shooting politicians. The radicals amongst us have joined a tea party, some like Sarah Palin and I suspect after a shooting as yesterday's, we can now add muslims to the list of people who privately say behind closed doors, 'Oh g-d let it not be a muslim who did this.'
I'm truly hard pressed to feel anything but pity for the young man who did everything in his power up until the day he was saying goodbye and leaving messages to his friends, 'dont be mad at me, dont be angry with me' He posted everywhere he felt isolated, alone, peculiar, afraid of what he was feeling, wanting to hurt people in power, police. Reports coming he was tossed out of college 5x FIVE TIMES and told to come back once a shrink certified him mentally able to attend class. Five Times. So, parents he lived with knew about his mental illness, friends knew he was mentally unstable, college admins clearly knew he was mentally ill and like so many before him, Loughner was dinner table fodder, someone to point out, point at and avoid at any cost.
Thought to myself since we've had a decade of young adults committing murders, murders of parents, siblings and total strangers there must be some protocols in place on how to handle someone clearly in pain and out of control. There it seems there is, you get dismissed from school, joked about, not taken seriously, thought to be looking for attention on YouTube or Facebook...its like the stakes keep getting higher, because the more he cried out for help, the louder he had to call out, the more violent and threatening he had to become and still his words were met with silence.
Health "reform" was passed with barely a glance at the needed reforms for mental health issues in America-and it is mental health driving people to do all kinds of things, just turn on the Tube, watch the hoarders, compulsive eaters, shoppers, killers, drug and alcohol users. If you stay up late you might catch 'strange sex' where people actually go on camera to show you they make love to balloons, dolls, fruits and veges and predators still show up even though Chris Hansen has been exposing perverts for years. We are a nation incapacitated by depression, grief, anxiety, in denial and surrounded by clusters of child molestors, a population so huge there aren't enough 'safe zone' to keep them out of communities. They're everywhere.
A person who cannot bear the pain of living in this circus explodes and kills. And the wash/rinse/spin media cycle goes round and round, they just stop short of telling viewers to grab a bowl of popcorn as they enthusiastically interview relatives of the dead and dying. A mother whose 9yr old daughter was born on 9.11 is on television in less than 24 hours after her child's murder.
A professor and a brilliant poet I studied with once shared a story many years ago about the late poet George Oppen. Oppen was so appalled at the state of affairs in America during the 30s-40s that he stopped writing. He didnt write any poetry for 11 years. The story told was in the context that Oppen chose to not write in protest of human obscene behavior against humanity.
I'm a Jew first and foremost. Is it good for the Jews? Of course not, bad news is never good for The Jews because there's always someone to point a finger and announce Jews Are Responsible. The media, always looking for the next hook to keep viewers tuned in, made the astute observation that Gifford is Jewish somewhere backthere and Loughner read Mein Kampf.
Americans can no longer distinguish where liberty, freedom and responsibility separates from what is intolerable, unacceptable and an infringement on everyone.
We are worried about the govt interfering with the Internet, we are adamant that no one pat us down, dont touch my junk, at the airports, and officials agree we could never have a tight security system like Israel, Americans are a diverse group and wouldnt tolerate profiling or intense inspections.
Dictatorship (check out Venezuela) is paternalism swathed in lies and enforced by the hungry over the hopeless.
I quickly separated out my sympathy for the Gifford family and the other unknowns who died and those still in the hospital, but my nausea remains unappeased as bullet trajectories are pondered, diagrams and hypothesis that the particular shooting is a result of political rancor-either the media is now fully under the control of the current administration and this is the official stance, or stupidity reigns more supreme than I imagined.
There are thousands of folks who lost their jobs, homes, financial security, millions of others who see right through the political lies and politicians who keep selling out America to foreign interests because being a whore expeditiously lines their own pockets for their own families and why not, the ship is sinking, might as well make the best of it for ME...and of all us disenfranchised folk, dont see nobody going around shooting politicians. The radicals amongst us have joined a tea party, some like Sarah Palin and I suspect after a shooting as yesterday's, we can now add muslims to the list of people who privately say behind closed doors, 'Oh g-d let it not be a muslim who did this.'
I'm truly hard pressed to feel anything but pity for the young man who did everything in his power up until the day he was saying goodbye and leaving messages to his friends, 'dont be mad at me, dont be angry with me' He posted everywhere he felt isolated, alone, peculiar, afraid of what he was feeling, wanting to hurt people in power, police. Reports coming he was tossed out of college 5x FIVE TIMES and told to come back once a shrink certified him mentally able to attend class. Five Times. So, parents he lived with knew about his mental illness, friends knew he was mentally unstable, college admins clearly knew he was mentally ill and like so many before him, Loughner was dinner table fodder, someone to point out, point at and avoid at any cost.
Thought to myself since we've had a decade of young adults committing murders, murders of parents, siblings and total strangers there must be some protocols in place on how to handle someone clearly in pain and out of control. There it seems there is, you get dismissed from school, joked about, not taken seriously, thought to be looking for attention on YouTube or Facebook...its like the stakes keep getting higher, because the more he cried out for help, the louder he had to call out, the more violent and threatening he had to become and still his words were met with silence.
Health "reform" was passed with barely a glance at the needed reforms for mental health issues in America-and it is mental health driving people to do all kinds of things, just turn on the Tube, watch the hoarders, compulsive eaters, shoppers, killers, drug and alcohol users. If you stay up late you might catch 'strange sex' where people actually go on camera to show you they make love to balloons, dolls, fruits and veges and predators still show up even though Chris Hansen has been exposing perverts for years. We are a nation incapacitated by depression, grief, anxiety, in denial and surrounded by clusters of child molestors, a population so huge there aren't enough 'safe zone' to keep them out of communities. They're everywhere.
A person who cannot bear the pain of living in this circus explodes and kills. And the wash/rinse/spin media cycle goes round and round, they just stop short of telling viewers to grab a bowl of popcorn as they enthusiastically interview relatives of the dead and dying. A mother whose 9yr old daughter was born on 9.11 is on television in less than 24 hours after her child's murder.
A professor and a brilliant poet I studied with once shared a story many years ago about the late poet George Oppen. Oppen was so appalled at the state of affairs in America during the 30s-40s that he stopped writing. He didnt write any poetry for 11 years. The story told was in the context that Oppen chose to not write in protest of human obscene behavior against humanity.
I'm a Jew first and foremost. Is it good for the Jews? Of course not, bad news is never good for The Jews because there's always someone to point a finger and announce Jews Are Responsible. The media, always looking for the next hook to keep viewers tuned in, made the astute observation that Gifford is Jewish somewhere backthere and Loughner read Mein Kampf.
Americans can no longer distinguish where liberty, freedom and responsibility separates from what is intolerable, unacceptable and an infringement on everyone.
We are worried about the govt interfering with the Internet, we are adamant that no one pat us down, dont touch my junk, at the airports, and officials agree we could never have a tight security system like Israel, Americans are a diverse group and wouldnt tolerate profiling or intense inspections.
Dictatorship (check out Venezuela) is paternalism swathed in lies and enforced by the hungry over the hopeless.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Kaddish for my father
My father passed away February 16 1973/(1st)Adar 14 5773.
He was from an Orthodox Jewish family who came from Prussia. He married twice and his 2nd wife, my mother was not Jewish. When he died, she had him cremated.
A Lubavitcher family helped me arrange for his ashes to be buried 7 years later. At that time I was living in Crown Heights but no one discussed with me whether kaddish should be said. The assumption on my part was a cremated Jew is buried outside the fence from other Jews. No one else discussed this with me.
This year I specifically asked whether kaddish could finally be said for my father and Rav Schusterman in Detroit discussed the particulars with me from that period and paskened kaddish may and should be said. My father was mentally addled from pain medications at age 82, worried to death about me and my younger he would leave without any means of support. He knew he was dying and was always trying to sit us down to talk about our future. After all we'd been through with him for so many years, we kept telling him not to worry, as we went on our way out to meet friends or do homework. However, cremation was never mentioned, ever. I think as well, his being cut off from his family and literally without friends, arranging a funeral and such details must have been so depressing and overwhelming for him. But I will never know, except I do know he took me to shul many times, he tried to keep shabbos and taught me to bentsch, make kiddush. He considered himself a Jew, despite his choice of bride.
I naturally turned to Chabad online to inquire whether kaddish could be arranged, but the fee is unaffordable. It's really distasteful having to shop around to have such important prayers said over a soul that was shunned by his own family for marrying my mother, then lived dependent on her (he was many years older than her) and finally suffering the indignity of being cremated, but I have no choice except to keeping looking, because he will have kaddish and the appropriate prayers said this year, G-d willing.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Do more, and then some
As I bent over to pick up a pot lid that crashed to the floor from the drainboard, trying to slip something into the trashcan at the same time as I turned from feeding the cats...it felt as it has more often and recently that there are too many things to do, going on.
I cannot do 3-4-5 things at once anymore. My multi-task switch short circuited sometimes during the last year of work, possibly early as I heard a slow fizzling of strength ebbing away. And yet old patterns are hard to end. Erev shabbos (Thurs) usually means fixing soup, putting away clothes or papers I tossed on a shelf or hook. I love the ritual, tomorrow night is quiet, licht bentching. Considering my health, it might make more sense to spread these fairly simple tasks over a couple of days, but then it wouldnt feel they are done in honor of shabbos. And then there are constant issues and forms, demands from disability company asking for updates, dr. appointments. Frazzled describes it.
Lately I keep thinking of something the Rebbe told Chana Sharfstein who had contact with the Rebbe since her childhood. Kindness without limits, the Rebbe without being anyone but himself wore so many hats for every chossid. Chana told the Rebbe she was going to retire from teaching, I think that is what she told him and his response was to the effect that a person does not 'retire', as one chapter ends, we begin a new one. And so after a full career, also lecturing, writing, Chana looked around for her next project and just finished her autobiography that is being published by Kehot.
This story reminded me of what Rabbi Steinsaltz mentioned the Rebbe told him when he said he was behind in his master work and many other smaller projects and felt he needed to bring in some help. The Rebbe told him to take on more work. I love this story because I experienced something similiar in yechidus-Steinsaltz thought maybe the Rebbe had not heard him correctly-no, he was already in a state of drowning in work, he felt another set of eyes and hands would be just the ticket. The Rebbe explained when you expand and keep expanding, your capacity to meet those demands also expands, you have more to do, you do more.
The Rebbe hears and sees everything. When I went to the Ohel a few months back, the primary reasons were to meet and thank the Rebbe for everything, and to ask if possible for him to lift the heavy black stone off my heart that has been there since childhood. Doctors and pills have never come close. While the impediment of a darker soul has meant a professional career in writing and writing in other genre, it has also been very destructive and painful.
About a month after returning from the Ohel, there was a marked difference. I found myself reaching out to people around me, trying to be kind, to listen rather than talk at everyone...to hear without speaking and see if there was anything I could do. I have poor parenting skills and have lived without friends all my life. My life is completely solitary. People actually terrify me. The volcano created by the fire storm of living with alcoholic violence, the daily instability, the betrayals, lies, complete distrust-the only way to remain alive and safe is to rely on G-d and one own work; learned in the cradle and sadly has followed me until now. But the subtle difference now is that someone can be moody or not feel like being nice or talking and I understand it wasnt something stemming from me-the Rebbe is teaching me I dont run the world, that even to think this way is giyvah, self centeredness.
I think it is very dangerous to dismiss every ache and issue a Jew has with a prescription to say more Tehillim-we say when you give a man food, he has a meal, give him a skill and he is set for life. The soul and the lesser soul that is more in contact with the world--the part of us that has to get into the muck and mire of daily life that means working with difficult people including non Jews or self hating Jews, it depletes even further those people who spent their childhoods in a war zone. I havent been to children of alcoholics,but have read some material.
Rabbi Twersky in Pittsburgh gets it, most of it is explained and written in his many books. But in general, there is a disconnect between certain levels of trauma and how modern Jews (post WWII) deal with trauma (substance abuse/domestic violence/molestation/rape etc). Maybe the notions of separation, to remain separate in all things from goyim has kept us from finding help and protection and there is also a level of denial-we are Jews, we are chosen, any acts done outside the laws of G-d are abberations, not the norm, therefore label them as indicative of mental illness as Jews who are doing what's correct for Jews dont come in contact with these problems...they're too busy doing the right thing!
Maybe that's why the Rebbe wants us to take on more, stay busy-I know as little as the next person, but the non Jewish and non frum world seems to be reveling more in darkness and evil than goodness and light. I understand even speaking or belaboring these subjects is a thorn in the side of Chabad, but sweeping pain or grief under the rug only undermines long term goals. A house needs a strong foundation to remain standing; we have a foundation but a house without a balesbuss who was once the only light for some chassidim born in a deep hole or inside a volcano feel like they're barely holding on or slipping away altogether. Writing and asking for a bracha made a marked difference for me. As time goes on many other issues I was struggled with seem less urgent in needing a solution.
As one of my sweet daughters said, 'You cant fix everything...'
Its been a difficult 2 days traveling back and forth to the hospital so this post may be rambling more than my usual rambling lololol.
good shabbos to anyone who comes by here...
I cannot do 3-4-5 things at once anymore. My multi-task switch short circuited sometimes during the last year of work, possibly early as I heard a slow fizzling of strength ebbing away. And yet old patterns are hard to end. Erev shabbos (Thurs) usually means fixing soup, putting away clothes or papers I tossed on a shelf or hook. I love the ritual, tomorrow night is quiet, licht bentching. Considering my health, it might make more sense to spread these fairly simple tasks over a couple of days, but then it wouldnt feel they are done in honor of shabbos. And then there are constant issues and forms, demands from disability company asking for updates, dr. appointments. Frazzled describes it.
Lately I keep thinking of something the Rebbe told Chana Sharfstein who had contact with the Rebbe since her childhood. Kindness without limits, the Rebbe without being anyone but himself wore so many hats for every chossid. Chana told the Rebbe she was going to retire from teaching, I think that is what she told him and his response was to the effect that a person does not 'retire', as one chapter ends, we begin a new one. And so after a full career, also lecturing, writing, Chana looked around for her next project and just finished her autobiography that is being published by Kehot.
This story reminded me of what Rabbi Steinsaltz mentioned the Rebbe told him when he said he was behind in his master work and many other smaller projects and felt he needed to bring in some help. The Rebbe told him to take on more work. I love this story because I experienced something similiar in yechidus-Steinsaltz thought maybe the Rebbe had not heard him correctly-no, he was already in a state of drowning in work, he felt another set of eyes and hands would be just the ticket. The Rebbe explained when you expand and keep expanding, your capacity to meet those demands also expands, you have more to do, you do more.
The Rebbe hears and sees everything. When I went to the Ohel a few months back, the primary reasons were to meet and thank the Rebbe for everything, and to ask if possible for him to lift the heavy black stone off my heart that has been there since childhood. Doctors and pills have never come close. While the impediment of a darker soul has meant a professional career in writing and writing in other genre, it has also been very destructive and painful.
About a month after returning from the Ohel, there was a marked difference. I found myself reaching out to people around me, trying to be kind, to listen rather than talk at everyone...to hear without speaking and see if there was anything I could do. I have poor parenting skills and have lived without friends all my life. My life is completely solitary. People actually terrify me. The volcano created by the fire storm of living with alcoholic violence, the daily instability, the betrayals, lies, complete distrust-the only way to remain alive and safe is to rely on G-d and one own work; learned in the cradle and sadly has followed me until now. But the subtle difference now is that someone can be moody or not feel like being nice or talking and I understand it wasnt something stemming from me-the Rebbe is teaching me I dont run the world, that even to think this way is giyvah, self centeredness.
I think it is very dangerous to dismiss every ache and issue a Jew has with a prescription to say more Tehillim-we say when you give a man food, he has a meal, give him a skill and he is set for life. The soul and the lesser soul that is more in contact with the world--the part of us that has to get into the muck and mire of daily life that means working with difficult people including non Jews or self hating Jews, it depletes even further those people who spent their childhoods in a war zone. I havent been to children of alcoholics,but have read some material.
Rabbi Twersky in Pittsburgh gets it, most of it is explained and written in his many books. But in general, there is a disconnect between certain levels of trauma and how modern Jews (post WWII) deal with trauma (substance abuse/domestic violence/molestation/rape etc). Maybe the notions of separation, to remain separate in all things from goyim has kept us from finding help and protection and there is also a level of denial-we are Jews, we are chosen, any acts done outside the laws of G-d are abberations, not the norm, therefore label them as indicative of mental illness as Jews who are doing what's correct for Jews dont come in contact with these problems...they're too busy doing the right thing!
Maybe that's why the Rebbe wants us to take on more, stay busy-I know as little as the next person, but the non Jewish and non frum world seems to be reveling more in darkness and evil than goodness and light. I understand even speaking or belaboring these subjects is a thorn in the side of Chabad, but sweeping pain or grief under the rug only undermines long term goals. A house needs a strong foundation to remain standing; we have a foundation but a house without a balesbuss who was once the only light for some chassidim born in a deep hole or inside a volcano feel like they're barely holding on or slipping away altogether. Writing and asking for a bracha made a marked difference for me. As time goes on many other issues I was struggled with seem less urgent in needing a solution.
As one of my sweet daughters said, 'You cant fix everything...'
Its been a difficult 2 days traveling back and forth to the hospital so this post may be rambling more than my usual rambling lololol.
good shabbos to anyone who comes by here...
Monday, January 3, 2011
A sicho on mental health
I'm having flashbacks. In 1974 (?) give or take a year, as a new initiate to Chabad, I was stationed in MN for a few weeks of spit, polish and education that mainly consisted of group learning with Reb Manis Friedman beginning at 12AM, you read that right, AM and some lessons on reading prayers in Hebrew. Lo these 35+ years later I'm listening online to his lessons on Tanya and hearing the same sort of black and white posits; such as we were told back then "Being religious is like being pregnant, either you are, or you're not." And this was stated in the context of why Chabad chassidus is the one correct path leading to a life of Torah, mitzvot.
In the lecture I listened to (audio lessons) Chapt 14 of Tanya is being explained-I will attempt to describe as carefully as I can.
On the spectrum of beings created, specifically the lecture dealt with the Tzaddik and the Benoni( benoni being the level average man should strive to become)A benoni can never be a tzaddik-a tzaddik's love is pure because he has no other thought or distraction except to love Hashem. That is the essence of his being, perfect love, he is born that way he does not attain this level by doing anything and is not distracted from this because this is who he is, pshat.
The benoni must work to love Hashem and he does this through learning Torah and doing mitzvot; the benoni struggles between his yetza hora and his yezter tov but because he is a Jew, innately he wants to be close to Hashem, he wants to do the right thing-and when a Jew deviates from doing the right thing and does sin, in that moment he is not in his right mind as a Jew-actually I think Friedman used the word insane to describe why a Jew moves off the derech of doing what Jews are to do and do whatever it takes for that process to move forward while always being in this struggle within himself.
Well...so Im asking myself, does Chabad or Tanya attribute all 'bad' or unJewish behaviors to temporary madness or insanity? Is this a new interpretation by Rabbi Freidman or this was the thinking of the Baal Shem Tov? Other religion have for centuries described possession or evil spirits to account for mental illness in people.
What greatly frustrates me to the point of anger are the pithy statements as the one above about being religious-and in this instance attributing un-Torah like behavior to mental illness. If that is actually the belief, then mental illness as explained in secular texts is nonsense and the only cure for Jew is immersion in Torah and mitzvot. I knew enough women and men who dressed the part and did the acts of a chosid but were clearly not of sound mind.
This is not only about my own battle with depression and anxiety which has effected fulfillment of religious duties, doing or not doing, lacking patience or faith that I can step back and let Hashem do His work...and why is that?
Well when you're a child raised in a house of madness, you adapt certain behaviors in order to survive. Some people drink, drug, other become violent or take on other unacceptable behaviors. I learned early to keep quiet, keep my ears to the ground and interpret trouble fast and see where I can help to put out 'fires.' In other words, I parented two people who were never parents. And yet I have very poor parenting skills as an adult to my own children, I am late in learning.
I left the parental house of madness and after a brief stint in Israel went into Chabad for almost 15 years. It was a deliberate and conscious choice to be religious-I am not my parents, I wanted to be Jewish, religious, have a wholesome and secure marriage with a Jewish spouse and raise Jewish children.
I've already written about my conversion by Chabad because of my mother's non-kosher toivel and absolute nose thumbing at anything Jewish other than my father's bank account, so I'll not repeat it here. The point is, I chose or maybe saying "I" chose is givah...I believe in being chosen and had an impediment (a non Jewish mother) that needed to be corrected. There was never a day in my life I felt to be anyone else but a Jew. Even when I stepped into another religion for a brief period, prayed and studied that religion, it felt like putting on a coat and hat that was not mine, it felt like something borrowed (this must be the 'insanity' clause Friedman describes)that never quite fit. And unlike alot of women, my interest in religion came long before marriage was in the picture. I felt utterly rejected by Chabad-never quite measuring up. I'm told this is my own character defect or 'issue' not Chabad. If the sign of wealth from Hashem is one's children,I am rich.
But from the years of terror, seeing similiar patterns in my then husband made me frantic to 'fix' it all, with therapists, rabbonim and finally leaving, husband and children because the situation was violent, relentless poverty, annual childbirth/nursing with no family help advice it was sink or swim ever day.
After 9 years asking the Rebbe how can I fix this before my children are marked as damaged goods-as a family we had already attained this status with tzaddakah boxes coming each week with food, used clothes, unemployment, me being told to stay home and refused a heter for birth control, yeshivah tuition unpaid, rent owed and the kids being asked to leave school, not welcome to play at neighbors homes. I came from madness to Hashem and His community to find another version of madness, only this version supposedly is sanctioned because everything is cloaked as done through Torah and mitzvot. If you wear a kipota and go to shul to shmooz, alles git.
It's a mitzvah to feed the poor and even better to give person a skill to earn his own bread. Where is the mitzvah when a man eats his fill and looks for the next handout? Is it in Torah to label a person a nebish or amahoretz, thereby washing the community's hands of responsibility to take an active role in holding such a person responsible because the lives he is responsible for are being destroyed?
Yes, thats all happened years ago. And all the destruction has been done. And now I find that because I made a choice to gain control, no longer cede our lives to someone who could not take care of us, but to take it back and go to school (no bracha) or find a way to work (no bracha), that this mental switch of not accepting my position as a dependent wife and mother, was a state of madness. It was not madness to live like that, as long as I would daven and hope beyond hope that someday it would all even out.
Evidently there are not a few once devout chassidim and or their children leaving, speaking out, writing and acting out sexually, with drugs, noted to be behaviors of minds gone bad...insane benonim overcome by evil urges. Who is Rabbi Friedman speaking to...those still inside, those who left, those who might be snared and brought in?
I could be wrong and have misunderstood the points being made. However, my experience then with Chabad and now, is frighteningly similar. Black and White, there are no grays.
My loyalty, though it may seem laughable from the way I write about Chabad, is very deep. I turned to chassidus as a young girl because it fit, spiritually and mentally. I recognized Chabad, yiddish felt like home though no one spoke it at home and living each week around shabbos made perfect sense internally; except it was all done on someone else's dime once I married. Everything in terms of gashmias came from the Rebbe and many other people. I'm not biting the hand that fed me; when you stop loving someone or something, you leave it and could care less. I love the Rebbe for all his kindness despite him knowing who I was and what was going on. But I wasnt knowledgable by any stretch to interpret many of the condensed answers that the office called to give me.
What I'm looking for is not an excuse for my own departue, maybe I'm looking for a sicho that doesnt equate the abuse of women and children as status quo wherein those wives and mother with 'issues' can have their issues remedied with tehillim and bitochan while men go on their merry way...unaccountable as ever.
In the lecture I listened to (audio lessons) Chapt 14 of Tanya is being explained-I will attempt to describe as carefully as I can.
On the spectrum of beings created, specifically the lecture dealt with the Tzaddik and the Benoni( benoni being the level average man should strive to become)A benoni can never be a tzaddik-a tzaddik's love is pure because he has no other thought or distraction except to love Hashem. That is the essence of his being, perfect love, he is born that way he does not attain this level by doing anything and is not distracted from this because this is who he is, pshat.
The benoni must work to love Hashem and he does this through learning Torah and doing mitzvot; the benoni struggles between his yetza hora and his yezter tov but because he is a Jew, innately he wants to be close to Hashem, he wants to do the right thing-and when a Jew deviates from doing the right thing and does sin, in that moment he is not in his right mind as a Jew-actually I think Friedman used the word insane to describe why a Jew moves off the derech of doing what Jews are to do and do whatever it takes for that process to move forward while always being in this struggle within himself.
Well...so Im asking myself, does Chabad or Tanya attribute all 'bad' or unJewish behaviors to temporary madness or insanity? Is this a new interpretation by Rabbi Freidman or this was the thinking of the Baal Shem Tov? Other religion have for centuries described possession or evil spirits to account for mental illness in people.
What greatly frustrates me to the point of anger are the pithy statements as the one above about being religious-and in this instance attributing un-Torah like behavior to mental illness. If that is actually the belief, then mental illness as explained in secular texts is nonsense and the only cure for Jew is immersion in Torah and mitzvot. I knew enough women and men who dressed the part and did the acts of a chosid but were clearly not of sound mind.
This is not only about my own battle with depression and anxiety which has effected fulfillment of religious duties, doing or not doing, lacking patience or faith that I can step back and let Hashem do His work...and why is that?
Well when you're a child raised in a house of madness, you adapt certain behaviors in order to survive. Some people drink, drug, other become violent or take on other unacceptable behaviors. I learned early to keep quiet, keep my ears to the ground and interpret trouble fast and see where I can help to put out 'fires.' In other words, I parented two people who were never parents. And yet I have very poor parenting skills as an adult to my own children, I am late in learning.
I left the parental house of madness and after a brief stint in Israel went into Chabad for almost 15 years. It was a deliberate and conscious choice to be religious-I am not my parents, I wanted to be Jewish, religious, have a wholesome and secure marriage with a Jewish spouse and raise Jewish children.
I've already written about my conversion by Chabad because of my mother's non-kosher toivel and absolute nose thumbing at anything Jewish other than my father's bank account, so I'll not repeat it here. The point is, I chose or maybe saying "I" chose is givah...I believe in being chosen and had an impediment (a non Jewish mother) that needed to be corrected. There was never a day in my life I felt to be anyone else but a Jew. Even when I stepped into another religion for a brief period, prayed and studied that religion, it felt like putting on a coat and hat that was not mine, it felt like something borrowed (this must be the 'insanity' clause Friedman describes)that never quite fit. And unlike alot of women, my interest in religion came long before marriage was in the picture. I felt utterly rejected by Chabad-never quite measuring up. I'm told this is my own character defect or 'issue' not Chabad. If the sign of wealth from Hashem is one's children,I am rich.
But from the years of terror, seeing similiar patterns in my then husband made me frantic to 'fix' it all, with therapists, rabbonim and finally leaving, husband and children because the situation was violent, relentless poverty, annual childbirth/nursing with no family help advice it was sink or swim ever day.
After 9 years asking the Rebbe how can I fix this before my children are marked as damaged goods-as a family we had already attained this status with tzaddakah boxes coming each week with food, used clothes, unemployment, me being told to stay home and refused a heter for birth control, yeshivah tuition unpaid, rent owed and the kids being asked to leave school, not welcome to play at neighbors homes. I came from madness to Hashem and His community to find another version of madness, only this version supposedly is sanctioned because everything is cloaked as done through Torah and mitzvot. If you wear a kipota and go to shul to shmooz, alles git.
It's a mitzvah to feed the poor and even better to give person a skill to earn his own bread. Where is the mitzvah when a man eats his fill and looks for the next handout? Is it in Torah to label a person a nebish or amahoretz, thereby washing the community's hands of responsibility to take an active role in holding such a person responsible because the lives he is responsible for are being destroyed?
Yes, thats all happened years ago. And all the destruction has been done. And now I find that because I made a choice to gain control, no longer cede our lives to someone who could not take care of us, but to take it back and go to school (no bracha) or find a way to work (no bracha), that this mental switch of not accepting my position as a dependent wife and mother, was a state of madness. It was not madness to live like that, as long as I would daven and hope beyond hope that someday it would all even out.
Evidently there are not a few once devout chassidim and or their children leaving, speaking out, writing and acting out sexually, with drugs, noted to be behaviors of minds gone bad...insane benonim overcome by evil urges. Who is Rabbi Friedman speaking to...those still inside, those who left, those who might be snared and brought in?
I could be wrong and have misunderstood the points being made. However, my experience then with Chabad and now, is frighteningly similar. Black and White, there are no grays.
My loyalty, though it may seem laughable from the way I write about Chabad, is very deep. I turned to chassidus as a young girl because it fit, spiritually and mentally. I recognized Chabad, yiddish felt like home though no one spoke it at home and living each week around shabbos made perfect sense internally; except it was all done on someone else's dime once I married. Everything in terms of gashmias came from the Rebbe and many other people. I'm not biting the hand that fed me; when you stop loving someone or something, you leave it and could care less. I love the Rebbe for all his kindness despite him knowing who I was and what was going on. But I wasnt knowledgable by any stretch to interpret many of the condensed answers that the office called to give me.
What I'm looking for is not an excuse for my own departue, maybe I'm looking for a sicho that doesnt equate the abuse of women and children as status quo wherein those wives and mother with 'issues' can have their issues remedied with tehillim and bitochan while men go on their merry way...unaccountable as ever.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Remembering Billy Taylor
Sunday afternoon, alot of laundry, made a batch of snowball cookies and listening to a radio marathon of Billy Taylor's jazz piano recordings solo and with other musicians.
My father loved going out to restaurants, though it was hard to understand why he did as so many times he would wind up so inebriated he didnt eat a forkful of steak or whatever he ordered.
But one place he loved and was well known and respected was the Hickory House in NYC. He took me with him many times for dinner and Billy Taylor was the resident piano player. In the 50's it was common to have a 'house' musician or band playing during dinner.
I was about 7 years old and my father trotted me around town on his many diversions, going to the bookie on Riverside Drive, going to Aqueduct Race Track, eating out at fancy restaurants because there were foods my mother didnt or couldnt make for him. I had just started taking piano lessons and my father, being a legend in his own mind and in some cases, actually was one in his time, felt I should introduce my little self to Billy Taylor (later known as Dr.Taylor). Refusing to walk up to the piano while Taylor was doing a set was unthinkable even to a 7 year old, but it was actually easier than arguing with a drunk.
Whether Taylor understood my predicament or not, he played as I slowly went up to the side of the piano and stood there listening, wishing I was invisible. Without stopping his playing he motioned me to come closer and then moved over so I could sit next to him. He didnt say a word...he just shared a few minutes of the end of his set and walked me back to our dinner table. My father was being served his apple pie and cheddar cheese (he salted his watermelon too) and very loudly offered Mr. Taylor a drink. Billy Taylor demurred quietly and went back to his band. And going home in the cab I couldnt stop sobbing and couldnt understand why I was except that for a spilt second someone saw it, someone understood it all and without saying a word offered solace. A gentle man...it seems all his life.
My father loved going out to restaurants, though it was hard to understand why he did as so many times he would wind up so inebriated he didnt eat a forkful of steak or whatever he ordered.
But one place he loved and was well known and respected was the Hickory House in NYC. He took me with him many times for dinner and Billy Taylor was the resident piano player. In the 50's it was common to have a 'house' musician or band playing during dinner.
I was about 7 years old and my father trotted me around town on his many diversions, going to the bookie on Riverside Drive, going to Aqueduct Race Track, eating out at fancy restaurants because there were foods my mother didnt or couldnt make for him. I had just started taking piano lessons and my father, being a legend in his own mind and in some cases, actually was one in his time, felt I should introduce my little self to Billy Taylor (later known as Dr.Taylor). Refusing to walk up to the piano while Taylor was doing a set was unthinkable even to a 7 year old, but it was actually easier than arguing with a drunk.
Whether Taylor understood my predicament or not, he played as I slowly went up to the side of the piano and stood there listening, wishing I was invisible. Without stopping his playing he motioned me to come closer and then moved over so I could sit next to him. He didnt say a word...he just shared a few minutes of the end of his set and walked me back to our dinner table. My father was being served his apple pie and cheddar cheese (he salted his watermelon too) and very loudly offered Mr. Taylor a drink. Billy Taylor demurred quietly and went back to his band. And going home in the cab I couldnt stop sobbing and couldnt understand why I was except that for a spilt second someone saw it, someone understood it all and without saying a word offered solace. A gentle man...it seems all his life.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
aint all about me either...
...even though every post is an act of writing 'all about me, I, myself' in some sense.
Growing up at age 57 is damn difficult. I've been forced against a wall of self confrontation, partly from my kids and in part because of medical disability. The days of I'll do what I want (re: work, college, marriage) is a life long gone. The funniest thing to hear is that 40 is the new 60 or 30 is the new 50 or some other perversion of the truth. Especially for Boomers who as a group wrought more havoc on our own health and the lives of our kids with communes, drugs, political games and short term thinking cased as long term goals for the future. Well the future has arrived, the kid are pissed off, the economy is in the tank, the medicines created for our personal excesses are either being recalled or dont work altogether.
In nursing homes where Alzeheimers is a growing concern, patients are given their toys to keep the calm and comforted...chocolate, dollies, stuffed toys.
But I digress as usual. I am forced to leave NY it seems. Now living on disability, about to lose health insurance with COBRA looming at around 1K per month, that and rent will more than take up all my disability, leaving bills, food and anything else unpaid. So looking out of town where my children live and while they're tryig to help, some points have been raised in the course of conversation. They're adults! and now one is actualllty waiting for Mom to return home anymore. What was needed and wanted decades ago, is lost to the wind. What I put on hold, is no longer held as precious...they have lives and want to flex their own wings as is their right.
It's a strange quandry to be in as I guess many people reach at some point in a country where elders are deemed somewhat of an inconvenience or duty rather than simply a fact of life to incorporate within the family.
Waiting for a vacancy on a public housing list can be years and that's simply not an option. My landlord is very nice but rents apartments because he needs his rent money, so I'm not able to hang out until something opens up in NY.
There's so much more involved here...I'll leave it for later, but the sooner I can get out of a place lived in for 19 years with too many stories, losses, changes, the better it will be.
Growing up at age 57 is damn difficult. I've been forced against a wall of self confrontation, partly from my kids and in part because of medical disability. The days of I'll do what I want (re: work, college, marriage) is a life long gone. The funniest thing to hear is that 40 is the new 60 or 30 is the new 50 or some other perversion of the truth. Especially for Boomers who as a group wrought more havoc on our own health and the lives of our kids with communes, drugs, political games and short term thinking cased as long term goals for the future. Well the future has arrived, the kid are pissed off, the economy is in the tank, the medicines created for our personal excesses are either being recalled or dont work altogether.
In nursing homes where Alzeheimers is a growing concern, patients are given their toys to keep the calm and comforted...chocolate, dollies, stuffed toys.
But I digress as usual. I am forced to leave NY it seems. Now living on disability, about to lose health insurance with COBRA looming at around 1K per month, that and rent will more than take up all my disability, leaving bills, food and anything else unpaid. So looking out of town where my children live and while they're tryig to help, some points have been raised in the course of conversation. They're adults! and now one is actualllty waiting for Mom to return home anymore. What was needed and wanted decades ago, is lost to the wind. What I put on hold, is no longer held as precious...they have lives and want to flex their own wings as is their right.
It's a strange quandry to be in as I guess many people reach at some point in a country where elders are deemed somewhat of an inconvenience or duty rather than simply a fact of life to incorporate within the family.
Waiting for a vacancy on a public housing list can be years and that's simply not an option. My landlord is very nice but rents apartments because he needs his rent money, so I'm not able to hang out until something opens up in NY.
There's so much more involved here...I'll leave it for later, but the sooner I can get out of a place lived in for 19 years with too many stories, losses, changes, the better it will be.
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